sewing bees

Creating a sewing bee is really very simple and a lot of fun. All you need is two or more people to start working together to produce awear clothes. We encourage sewing bees because they inspire creativity and engender community cohesion. We are looking for enthusiastic people who have the confidence and capability to create outfits like the ones you see posted on the awear website. The sewing bee doesn't necessarily have to consist entirely of sewing people. For example, it can also include people who are good at admin or who can photograph the outfit and upload images onto our website directly (once the sewing bee has reached a good level of competence)

The process

First we ask you to send us some photos of your work by email. If we think you can do this we will ask you to send a sample. If the sample is OK we will send you some petty cash to get started. Thereafter you will be able to produce outfits for awear for an agreed percentage of what the item sells for. We will ask you to source your own second-hand clothes. You may find that the best way of buying clothes is to encourage people to donate them. This can possibly be done by cooperating with firms with whom you already have a relationship. Alternatively, you can buy clothes from charity shops or car boot sales. Once you are doing a reasonable volume of trade you will be able to buy them, in bulk, from rag trade specialists who buy up the remains from the charity shops in your region.

When your sewing bee has been approved, we will send you our labels and logbooks. Every item you, or your sewing bee, produces, will have a unique number. The numbers will be sequential, so you can take pride in being one of the first people to make awear outfits in what we hope will become a worldwide community.

Your rejuvenated clothes will initially be sent in bulk to awear HQ, but eventually we will help you to send the output directly to the customer, so that you can earn more money for yourself or for your good cause.

We always pay our rejuvenators more than the going rate for employment of this kind in the area.

Every rejuvenator will be required to complete and sign the logbook that goes with the garment. People will be able to send messages to you about their experience with your garments. We hope this will give you a lot of pride. Your name will normally be your first name, followed by a number. For example, our first rejuvenator is Terez1. When there is another Terez rejuvenator she will be Terez2 and so on. If you prefer you can use a pseudonym. We will not give out your personal contact details without your permission.

To get things going please, in the first instance, send an email to : rejuvenator@awear.co